A US fugitive accused of raping his daughter and posting videos of the abuse online lived openly in China, even enjoying visits from his wife and registering at a local fitness club under his own name.
US court documents show that Kenneth John Freeman's wife, Maleka May, visited him in China more than once during his time as a fugitive.
May was detained in San Francisco on Thursday as she got off a plane from China. She denied having any contact with Freeman during his year on the run.
Information provided by the Powerhouse Gym also provided some clues about Freeman's several months spent living in Suzhou, where he was apparently employed as a computer expert.
Gym members said Freeman worked out almost every day and seemed friendly.
"He was the biggest guy in there. We figured he was some famous bodybuilder who had come to China to work," said Tom Stern of Berkley, California, a gym regular.
Freeman had been living in Seattle when he fled the US last year, months after his 17-year-old daughter told her mother he had assaulted her four years earlier. Video of the abuse is among the most widely downloaded child pornography in recent years.
Freeman, one of the US' most wanted men, was captured on Tuesday while trying to enter Hong Kong from China using his own passport.
He has been charged in Washington state with three counts of rape of a child and jumping bail. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Freeman also faces federal charges on suspicion of producing and distributing child pornography.
Hong Kong police said Freeman, 44, worked as a computer specialist for a US company in Suzhou, a hub of high-tech manufacturing about a two-hour drive from Shanghai.
Stern and other members of the gym described Freeman as serious about working out, saying he often partnered another US man whose identity was not immediately known.
However, Freeman was not a regular at any of the bars and restaurants where most foreigners gathered, they said.
May, 37, who married Freeman in Las Vegas about nine months before he was charged, had posted Freeman's US$50,000 bond, the Seattle Post Intelligencer said.
She was arrested on Thursday for making false statements to federal agents, the Department of Justice's northern California office said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Reports said Chinese police had tipped off their counterparts in Hong Kong, which unlike mainland China, has an extradition treaty with the US.
On Friday, Freeman said he wanted to contest the extradition request, his lawyer, Stephen Ma, said.
The case has been adjourned until July 3.
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